The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-12-04
THE pREsS-MAKING TRADE
High Prices Charged and Big Profits Mada
By Fashionable Modistes.


priestesses of the werld of fashion are supposed
| to serve foreign shrines. The great dressers es
New York society are imagined TO run over to
Europe once or twice year to procure some OF
the wonderful creations of Worth or his rival,
| Pineat to wander from Felix to Mangus-
Baronne and to inspect the latest thing out -
| Nine Laferrierres'. hsf5
| AS a matter of fact if you can't see style IN
New York itself you can't see it anywhere, and
some gowns which their wearers suppose 80
have been imported are in better taste than Z
they really had smelled salt water.
A lady whose gowns are one OF the stock atsF
fractions at the box show Of the Metropolitan
Opera-bouse on opening nights, stepped into ting
show rooms of well-known modiste and I'M
porter of Paris robes no long time since. She
wauted some s.confe ctionH in the line OF = re-
ception Dress from Worth 4 possible. Madams,
thought she could suit her.
ssHave You finished that green and black plusn
combination7s was the question she flung at hees
head dress-maker minute after, breathless
with a hasty run up stairs sYes." ssWeus
put Worth belt into it and bring it down stairs
as soon as you can" -
That worth belt-dress-makers keep stamped
belts in stock from all the better known Paris
houses-sold the gown to q woman who would
not have looked at it If she had not supposed it
was imported, and made It fetch S4oO, wnere a.
~~~~~~
brought S125.
The dress-maker whose work the gown was
and who has never seen Worth or Paris, tofds
me the tale and vouched for its accuracy; I'M
truth the trick is not an uncommon one-
There are not less than 20 600 dress makers IN /
and about New York and Brooklyn, and If one
counts the women employed on dresses in the !
factories and the slop-shop workers for thef
wholesale clothing dealers the number woulds
making is q good business. and there are few
trades if any. in which an intelligent girl cans
Dress-making. as a fine art. is profession, orr
rather it includes two or three professions II
takes brains 1t takes an eye for form, an eyerf
for color, knowledge of fabrics and their capa-
bilities, and 1t takes artists instinct and am
artists executive ability
IF had daughter with her bread and butt,
ter to earn would make a dress-ma of her.
The speaker was the modiste in charge of tho
order-room of one Of the city's big shopping
..Win you tell me how much of an appren..
ticeship to the business one has to serve and
what it paysr questioned by way of reply.
II keen eighty dress makers employed the yeaF
round. > the modiste went on I'VE make no
dresses for sale in the general stock. but get up
walking gowns, dinner gowns, matinee and
evening gowns to order for society women and
others. 1t is not an easy matter to get go9dJ
dress-ma' rs when we want them. and devaly
woman good wages If she chooses
''What me first ster in 1ea-.s:----s- ~
pushed the inqui
II like to get for aTa2artsez 80
Gated, quick, alert 49,
nothing be does very little in return She
learns 1fh her eyes than with her fingers
in that She is expected TO observe what
is goiL IN ard how it is going on, and give
her what small jobs she can be trusted with
Julie, come here"
Julie was the youngest apprentice. round
little creature with short, curly black hair,
fresh cheeks and swapping eyes.
Il am putting a belt into this bodice, and she
held up her work, .and sometimes put in tapes
to hang dress up by, and sometimes make a.
pocket for someone else to put IN
continued. '.Step number two is taken when a.
girl becomes sufficiently skilled to be trusted to
make the plain underdress, which is the basis
of all dress making nowadays. She sews up the
long straight seams She puts on the facing
and the braid.
siStep number three advances the girl to the
making of trimmings. She doesn't cut the MAJ
terial, you will understand All that is planned
and arranged for her; she only puts together
what someone else has blocked out
when she takes step number four she Is al
lowed to put the draperies on the skirt The
draper has previously designed the fall of every
fold and cut the material, indicating just how IL
is to 60 The younger hand does the needle
work necessary TO adjust it in place."
''And how about the bodice all this timer L
inquired; qInrs9. .,-. - -. ..,
different trades. We decide quite early in an
apprenticeship whether girl is TO learn waists
or skirts and then afterward she works on the
one or the other exelusively Ihave skirt makers
never touched a bodice. The ambition of th6 +
skirt-maker is to become draper. The ambition
Il
'.In making bodice the cutter first cuts out
the lining. This goes to the filter who has q
session with the woman who rs to wear it. Next
the cutter cuts the outside material of the
bodice and the filter has second session with
its prospective owner. Now comes the turn OF
fciency, sew and finish the seams. put in the
sleeves, finish at the neck and waist line ETC.
Making button holes is another distinct trade V
And what does all this pay the women who
do itI'
"That depends on intelligence as in every
other business My women ara paid by the
piece. and fairly good seamstress on bodice or
skirts earns from 50 TO SIS per week Take
this basque, for instance, and she held up some
I11ng IN m ,,.t nats more WIN green SIX vest
work, the woman who finishes it, button holes
not included is paid so 1t doesn't take .
long days work to make a living at that rate
Cutters, filters and drapers make better
wages, of course. A cutter earns from sI2 up.
Filters and diapers are the aristocrats OF the
profession. Hen do most Of the cutting for the
tailor gowns. but women cut and fit all others
No man can drape gown as a woman does.
Drapers and filters earn in modest establish
ments from SIS to $40 a week. When they have
genius they earn more. woman who has
originality, who can put new idea into silk or
worth almost any figure. There are drapers
and designers who are paid SO, s35. 80. 500 and
$40 per week
women who have brains to put into dress
making. as they put them into medicine or o her
professions that they are taking up set up for
make fortunes at It"
All this in spite of the starvation wages of tf.a.
tenement house sewing woman. There Is no
other business where the ras ge of prices Is sa
great Nine -. on the avenue. viii not put
her scissors into cloth for plain wool gown
short of s35 for the making For sifkssbe
shakes her head at so. She gets her rates be-
cause they do not seem high 10 atwoman who Is
used to putting some hundreds into an imported
gown Precisely the same material is put irl+n
d gown with just much work in it bv the
wholesaler who must place it so tha5the retailer
may sell it for ST. II the material N worth So
when two profits come cut thera is less than a
dollar usually for the needle-weman 8
And yet dress-makng IS as GOOD a bs,ssuesx 80
there Is for the woman who sews for & ref.1il
or order market. who establishes a fr..ae g.